AMERICANIZATION 

BY 

DR. ALBERT SHIELS 

Swpt. of Los Angeles Public 
Schools 

What it means 
How it operates 

How every city and town 
can put it into practical 
application. 


A revelation on the subject 
nearest every American 
patriot’s heart. 


Price, Twenty-Five Cents 


Copyright 1919 Los Angeles Examiner 











following work ap- 
^ J peared in installments 
in the Los Angeles Ex¬ 
aminer, So great was the 
interest aroused hy its news¬ 
paper publication that many 
of Southern California^s most 
thoughtful citizens requested 
the work's appearance in 
hook form for general guid¬ 
ance. 

Since writing these chapt¬ 
ers Dr, Shiels has taken 
charge of the Community 
Council or Americanization 
movement in New York City, 


ERRATA 

The articles appearing on pages 27 to 32 inclusive here¬ 
of were written by MISS RUBY BAUGHMAN, who is Super¬ 
visor of Immigrant Education and Elementary Evening 
Schools of the City of Los Angeles. A typographical error 
was made in the spelling of Miss Ruby Baughman’s name 
under the title of each of her articles. 


DEC 30 1919 ©C1A558695 


•'VV 


I 





THE MEANING OF AMERICANIZATION 
HAS CHANGED 

BY DR. ALBERT SHIELS 

Copyright, 1919, by Los Angeles Examiner 

Part 1 

The word “Americanization” is of comparatively recent coinage. The term 
first came into use when the accumulated waves of non-English speaking aliens 
suggested the need of some sort of effort to adjust them to this country by 
familiarizing them with its laws, customs and language. 

In the beginning the proposed plan seemed a simple and satisfactory one. 
All that would be necessary was the opening of a sufficient number of evening 
schools. These, the grateful foreigner would enter, and then after a season or 
two, presto, the thing was done! 

It is easy now to see how narrow and how superficial this program was. 
If we compare the two conceptions of Americanization, that of a few years 
ago and that of today, we see five striking differences. 

The first difference is that we now make our program with an eye to the 
foreigner himself, rather than to our own assumption of what he is or what 
he thinks. We realize that the words “foreigner” or “immigrant” or “alien” 
are merely conveniences of language. They include an infinite variety of 
capacities and cultures. 

Education affords a similar evolution in our thinking. A single method 
was once thought appropriate for all children. Now educators know that the 
educative process must in large measure be determined by the child himself, 
by his tastes and his abilities. It would be an exaggeration to say that every¬ 
one shares in the new point of view of the immigrant. 

There are yet too many whose conception of Americanization is a sort of 
moulding into a prearranged form of their own invention. These earnest souls 
rejoice when the newly arrived alien doffs the picturesque costume of his 
native land to assume the ungainly trousers, the boiled shirt and the iron col¬ 
lar of our civilization. They would like to have him mentally and spiritually 
laundered without a moment’s delay by some similarly rapid process. 

The second change in the older conception of Americanization is that it 
is not philanthropy. A few years ago we contributed money, we established 
agencies, we organized clubs, we opened schools, all to help the immigrant. 
It was all admirable, and it gave us that inward glow of satisfaction which 
goes with generous giving. But Americanization is not a matter of philanthropy. 

It would be better to describe it as a sort of national insurance for which 
we may well afford to pay even a heavy premium. It is in every way com¬ 
mendable to help the immigrant become a good citizen for his own sake. The 
important thing for Americans is to make him a loyal, law-abiding citizen for 
our sake. 

If our nation is to continue to play its great part in the world drama of 
Democracy, then not only for the nation itself, but for the world, our thoughts 
and labors must be determined by what is best for the nation. 

The third change in conception is the fundamental one. A great many are 
beginning to ask why Americanization is a word to be applied especially to 
the foreign born. Must not the process be extended? Do we not all need to 
be Americanized? 

When we apply to ourselves the same tests of loyalty, respect for law 


2 


AMERICANIZATION 


and service to the nation, which we require and rightly require of those who 
come here, we shall be more worthy of the country in which we live. 

Americanization therefore will no longer be a mode of thought and action 
intended for one special class. It applies to all and we all need it. 

The fourth change is in the new methods of Americanization to be fol¬ 
lowed. Hitherto Americanization was a general name for all sorts of agencies 
and activities. Some were constant, some sporadic, some intelligent, though 
often unsympathetic, and others burning with emotions but destitute of the 
other necessary quality. All of them were insufficient, and none of them organ¬ 
ized on a basis that brought together the various groups engaged in the process. 

The first fruits of a better organization will be not so much a more effi¬ 
cient operation as a keener realization of the things that remain to be done. 
Even if the new view has accomplished little more than the creation of a 
lively discontent with the old methods, there is now a vigorous desire to make 
them better. 

The fifth change affects directly the work of the public schools. Of the 
public school contribution three important things may be said. 

The first is that the most direct, the most continuous and the most effective 
work that has been done, especially for the non-English speaking foreigner, 
has been done by the schools of the nation. 

The second is that, significant as the work has been, it has been so only 
in comparison with the work of other agencies. In itself it has, through lack 
of funds and lack of trained teachers, been inadequate. Through a certain 
intolerance of private effort and co-operation, and a somewhat exaggerated 
notion of its expert ability, it has been insular. 

The third and most encouraging thing is that a great deal of the criticism 
of the school work has come from the school personnel, so that the defects of 
its accomplishment carry the seeds of their own improvement. 

The schools will always be the most effective instruments of Americaniza¬ 
tion whether for the native or foreign born. Only we must remember that 
schools alone cannot complete the work of Americanization any more than 
they complete any form of education. All experience is education. The civic 
experience of a people is its principal method of civic education. A community 
with indifferent voters, venal officials, dirty streets or indifferent enforcement 
of laws will neutralize all that the schools can do in making good citizens. 

Good citizenship is very much less a matter of knowledge than of habitual 
action. Therefore, Americanization—that is, the making of good citizens—de¬ 
pends very much more on the kind of a place a man lives in and the people 
he lives with than on the school he attended. 


AMERICANIZATION 


3 


WHO ARE IMMIGRANTS OF TODAY? 

Part 2 

The immigrant, today as always, comes either because he seeks a better 
opportunity or because he wishes to escape religious or political oppression. 
His mind is not a blank sheet of paper, ready to receive impressions. He has 
his own opinions and point of view. One of our mistakes has been to imagine 
every immigrant as a simple, earnest unlettered man or woman, eager to 
embrace a new civilization, and indifferent to the one he left. However immi¬ 
grants differ among themselves, it is safe to say that most of them agree in 
being something very unlike this imaginary figure that our sentimentalists have 
drawn. 

Who is the immigrant? All Americans are descendants of immigrants. 
Some point to their first American ancestry among those of the Mayflower; 
others among those who came over in the steerage of an ocean greyhound. 
Among the descendants of either are good Americans and bad. The date of 
arrival, real or alleged, of the first forefather implies no necessary desirability 
in the civic sense, of the son or daughter of today. 

Even the word American, as applied to the citizens of- our country, is 
open to logical objection. This may savor of hyper-criticism, yet the people 
of South America resolutely refuse to refer to us save as “North Americans.” 
We are, however, a practical people. The “United States of America” is rather 
a mouthful. The United States as an appellation of persons does not lend itself 
to euphonious designation. Therefore, we have monopolized the name “Ameri¬ 
can” without much bothering ourselves as to its precise geographical appropri¬ 
ateness. 

Before the later eighties, the immigrants now English speaking belonged 
to the farming class. There was room and opportunity for them beyond the 
Appalachians. These early waves of immigration, amounting to millions, were 
a tremendous industrial asset to the nation. The fertile prairie soil would 
have blossomed more slowly had it not been for their coming.. Many of them 
maintained for decades their old languages and customs, but their children 
and grandchildren were ultimately assimilated into one great American family. 

The late war gave some startling examples among them of the persistence 
of European sentiment even after two or three genrations, but it was not a 
characteristic condition. Had it not been for the deliberate enemy propaganda, 
which, at the time, we were too complacent or too simple to understand, even 
these exceptions would never have appeared. This earlier immigration was 
industrial and the great majority stood by the nation. They believed in our 
system of government. The ordinary observances of social life, as we know 
them, were known to them. They brought problems of their own, but the 
problems were solved because their numbers were easily absorbed in the new 
territory. 

Among the many races and nationalities comprised in the second wave of 
immigration, three predominate: The Italian, the Austro-Hungarian (grouped 
here for convenience), and the Jewish were solved because their numbers 
were from Russia, Rumania and Poland. There are many others: Slavs, 
Slovaks, Slovenes, Lithuanians, etc., who are scattered in groups in various 
sections of our country. Perhaps the best brief study of each of all of these 
groups appeared in recent issues of the Literary Digest. 

The Italian immigration in considerable part was recruited from the farm¬ 
ing class. As a rule they do well at intensive farming. But when ‘they ar¬ 
rived, fertile land was neither cheap nor readily accessible. The majority of 
Italian immigrants have been diverted only in small measure to agricultural 
pursuits. Most of them have provided the labor for building roadways and 


4 


AMERICANIZATION 


railways; others have remained in the cities and followed various city occupa¬ 
tions, among which the building and clothing trades have a large place. 

Like the Italians, the Austro-Hungarians have come here because of prom¬ 
ising industrial opportunities. A great number work in mines, in mill towns 
and in the great steel and iron centers. Even more than the Italians, they 
keep to themselves, and although they form their unions and other organiza¬ 
tions, these are usually maintained on a separate language basis. They are 
segregated, partly by their own desire, partly by the physical conditions of their 
employment. 

The enormous number of Jewish immigrants of the last thirty-five years 
has little relation to that other Jewish immigration whose American ancestry 
is now of considerable age. The older Jewish group is American precisely as 
are the other hundred millions of our population. The later Jewish addition, 
driven here by religious, industrial and political oppression abroad, is differ¬ 
ent. Their language, Yiddish, is itself a compound of German, Russian and 
English, written in Hebraic characters, and is already producing a literature 
of its own. 

This second Jewish immigration from Eastern and Southeastern Europe 
has almost a million representatives in New York City alone. The injustices 
of the countries from which they came compelled them to live in crowded 
ghettos. They were denied the ownership of land; they were driven either 
to city trades or to money lending. Educational opportunity, when given at 
all, was given grudgingly. The Russian Jew hates the old Russian regime, and 
he has abundant reason. 

The intelligence, shrewdness, industry and commercial genius of these 
immigrants needs no description. Within a very few years they have pro¬ 
duced many leaders in commerce, the arts and professions. They are law- 
abiding and loyal citizens, but they mix slowly. Gentile marriages are dis¬ 
couraged. They seek to maintain rigidly their race integrity. 

Much has been said of the Russian Jew as a factor in anarchistic and 
ultra-radical activities, especially in Russia. Trotsky (his real name, Braun- 
stein, bespeaks at least a German origin) is one of a group who resided for 
a time in New York. Russian Jews have been prominent in the movement. 

But the Russian Jews identified with anarchism are exceptions. They are 
usually renegades of their own race. The overwhelming majority follow the 
religion of Moses. They are rigidly orthodox. If they can be described in a 
phrase, they may be called the conservatives of the Conservatives. Learned 
in the law, respecting tradition, believing firmly in the rights of property. 

* * * 

Europe is not the only contributor to immigration. There are people who 
picture New England as filled with spotless towns, each with its little com¬ 
mon, its colonial homes, its solemn town meetings, attended by descendants 
of Revolutionary ancestors. If Mather or Endicott or Bradford or Winthrop 
could see some of these who now gather in village streets they might twitch 
nervously in their graves. They would hear many strange tongues, and the 
strangest of them would be French—the French of Canada. 

The great Southwest has its traveling regiments of Mexican workers. On 
one continental road for hundreds of miles not a word of English is spoken 
by track laborers. In the beet fields or in the vineyards, there come a com¬ 
pany who stay for a time and depart. California and the Coast have their 
Orientals—a type of immigration saving and industrious. They live apart, 
completely from the native population. The fioating Mexican labor and the 
more permanent Japanese labor, both add greatly to the agricultural wealth 
of the State. Yet the attitude of the West, especially to the Japanese, is not 
cordial. The instinctive revulsion that comes from race differences among 
workers can not be wiped away by arguments, however convincing they may 
be made. 


AMERICANIZATION 


5 


WHAT DOES THE IMMIGRANT BRING US? 

Part 3 

What are all these different kinds of foreign born people from every part 
of the world thinking about when the day’s labor is done? Are they loyal 
admirers of America or sullen critics, or are they merely indifferent? Too 
many of us think of them just as so many laborers. They are perhaps more 
complimentary. They may think of us as human beings. It would be worth 
knowing the kind of human beings they think we are. 

Most of them bring the labor. To that extent they are desirable. But it 
should be the kind of labor that the Nation needs. Many who come take up 
the same trade their friends or relations are following. Then they overcrowd 
an already overcrowded labor market. A few years ago in New York Jewish 
carpenters, rabbis, plumbers, all went to tailoring, and the labor wage of tailor¬ 
ing went down. This means suffering—a lower standard of living. It was 
bad for the laborers and bad for the community. Labor is good when it is 
placed where it is needed. Even employers have learned this. Nothing is 
gained by a low scale of living for any class. If great waves of immigration 
come to us again, we must devise modes of planning it properly. 

4 : 

Every immigrant group brings the culture of its people. There may be 
persons who think that culture is something one must get out of books or 
by attending a university extension course. But racial culture is inherent; 
it is the creation of many generations. It is the crystallizer habit of a race 
it is the creation of many generations. It is the crystallized habit of a race 
developed under certain conditions. In valley, shore or city and in certain 
social relations. Only in man do we find it, and we find it best preserved 
where conditions of living are least artificial and most permanent. 

Racial culture may be recorded in books, in things and in the manners 
and traditions of a people. In people it is expressed in costumes, in family 
customs, in songs, in games, in folk dances, in drama, in crafts of every kind, 
even in some special dish. Where there has been little wealth, a people must 
develop its arts and its recreations from within itself and for itself. That is 
what gives a certain dignity to every race with a long history. Newer and 
more prosperous communities don’t know how. They are specialists in their 
amusements as in their occupations. What they do not have they buy. An 
expert orchestra, a paid entertainer, an elaborate opera, a movie show—all are 
provided. They sit and watch or listen, but they give only their attention. 
They create no art because they do not have to. 

Yet every people should preserve and contribute to its own racial culture. 
What may be integrated into their lives from others, they should not willingly 
neglect. All these immigrants are bringing their respective gifts and most of 
us know nothing of them. And those who bring them, forget them. They, too, 
become Americanized to an extent. They learn to buy their pleasures and lose 
their art. If they could feel they came here not as one of a horde of laborers, 
Lut as contributors, they would preserve the things they brought. If we could 
enter with them into their fiestas, their processions, their fairs, both they and 
we would profit. America will be fairer when clothed in a brilliant garment 
that sparkles with the culture of the simple folk of many nations. 

If the immigrant brought only his labor and his racial heritage of culture 
there would be no problem to disturb us. But there are burdens in immigra¬ 
tion as well as benefits. Here again no general formula can be followed. 
There are differences in races; it is not that one may be better than another, 
tut that one will assimilate with us more readily. A hundred thousand 
Britons would be more welcome than a thousand Hindus. Differences in Ian- 


6 


AMERICANIZATION 


guage are formidable, but they may be overcome. When these differences 
multiply, when they extend to legal practice, family instructions, social cus¬ 
toms, race and the hundred other such broad distinctions we know instinctively 
that there is danger. Finally, when added to these qualitative differences, the 
problem is complicated by enormous numbers, the danger is a threatening one. 

Of the millions we have with us, what are the undesirable qualities among 
them that demand attention? One is the tendency toward segregation. We 
have too many foreign “colonies,” too many groups with their own newspapers, 
lodges, churches, unions, theaters and even extra legal forms. They are not to 
blame. It is not a question of assigning blame, but of appraising facts. Much 
of this segregation is compelled by circumstances. For some of it we are our¬ 
selves responsible. 

He * * 

Until something more effective for such foreign colonies than an occa¬ 
sional school or mission or settlement is devised, this will be a difficult ques¬ 
tion. It is absurd to talk of the Americanization of a group of people who are 
shut off from the things that make a coherent American civilization. There 
are neighborhoods, little Italys, little Russias, little Syrias, which, however 
interesting to the American visitors, are not good for America. If we must 
leave to time the disposal of the foreign colonies, we can at least do much to 
prevent the establishment of future ones. In many places poor foreigners 
are deliberately shunted to neighborhoods where physical conditions are main¬ 
tained contrary not only to public policy but to local law. If a city has money 
to spend on schools, playgrounds, lectures or forums, let them begin on these 
colonies. 

There are certain general objections urged against immigrant groups in 
their colonies: Dirt, disorder, indifference. But a community can remove 
some of the causes that compel these conditions. Why quarrel with dirty 
streets if we do not try to clean them? We do not have to accept the dictum 
that a man’s morality is in direct proportion to the number of porcelain baths 
he can find place for, but we should be aggressive as to the need of one. 
Homes that lack any may occasion criticism by a shallow observer. Yet what is 
the foreigner to do if the community permits the erection of houses that pro¬ 
vide no convenience for bathing? Faults we attribute to the foreigner are 
often those he cannot escape. 

But faults that offend the senses are not the most significant. There is 
a more important condition with which we have to deal. What is the for¬ 
eigner’s attitude towards the country in which he lives? This is a thousand¬ 
fold more significant than the obvious things that we can see. A man or 
woman, who is industrious, who overcrowds no single occupation, who wishes 
well the country that accepts him, who for the labor and culture qualities he 
brings asks only for an opportunity, cannot be a danger to a country. But 
what of his feeling to the country? Is he loyal? That is the fundamental 
question. 


AMERICANIZATION 


7 


WHAT BECOMES OF THE IMMIGRANT? 

Part 4 

The Americanization of the foreigner was once carried on by discussion, 
appeals and the making of committee reports. Every one looked at the ques¬ 
tion as one for the foreigner—for his advancement or relief. His virtues, his 
values, his wrongs were the theme. The tone of these contributions was some¬ 
times patronizing, sometimes sympathetic. Appeals were made in the name 
of philanthropy and charity. It took a long time to understand the mistaken 
view. For the first thing to look for was not the protection of the foreigner, 
but the protection of the nation. 

There has been too much of a comfortable feeling that there was no really 
serious problem of immigration. Somehow the matter would work itself out. 
If any one ventured to express the idea that no nation, not even this one, could 
keep on gorging food difficult to digest quickly, without suffering, he was told 
he was too narrow in his thinking. The professional optimists, who always 
avoid the pain of thinking by taking refuge in a phrase, would chatter about 
the “Melting Pot.” Now, that much overworked expression was popular be¬ 
cause it contained a sort of compliment to ourselves. We liked to feel that we 
could take anybody from anywhere and make him prosperous and turn him into 
splendid material. As we felt that way, we could dispense with the efforts 
necessary to find out how many immigrants were prosperous and how many 
were making good material. 

:)c 4: 

Reference has been made to the sentimental notion that every incoming 
immigrant is a simple child of nature, aching to live in the great new land of 
liberty, his loyalty and devotion all ready-made and eager to be put in action. 
Yet it needs no spectacled professor to tell us matters are not quite so simple 
as that. Every one of these newly arrived immigrants is possessed of a long 
line of instincts, inherited tendencies and habits of thinking. 

We are the same way. We know it would take a tremendous force to 
change the intellectual habits of some of us—our ideas of personal liberty, of 
respect for law, and of representative government. We think it would also 
take a tremendous time to do it. Traits good and bad have a long life. Whether 
by heredity or environment, they pass from one generation to another. That 
characteristic of survival is not monopolized by the Anglo-Saxon race. Every 
other race and people have it. 

When a family or a group of families have lived for generations under a 
consistent pressure of political tyranny or industrial oppression or religious 
intolerance, the attitude these conditions engender will persist for a long 
time. Imagine, for example, one group of immigrants to whom the word “Au¬ 
thority” or “Government” has always spelled misery, injustice and robbery, to 
whom conspiracy and assassination has seemed less a crime than a deed of 
patriotism. Only an enthusiast would believe that the accumulated hatred and 
suspicion among them would be cast aside in the presence of a new Authority 
or a new Government of which they knew but little. 

ij: 4: Hi 

The cheeriest optimism is simple indeed if it believes that as soon as the 
change of residence is made this particular type would reorganize its con¬ 
ceptions, throw away its prejudices, lose its suspicions, and joyfully join in 
one mighty and glorious paean to the Land of the Free. 

At best such a type might suspend judgment with reservation. As the 
attitude is popularly described, it would wait to be “shown.” Here at once 


8 


AMERICANIZATION 


comes the rejoinder: “But these people do see. Some get on quite nicely, 
buy a home, join a lodge, become naturalized, get a seat in the council.” Those 
of us who have had a share in the work of Americanization have heard such 
tales of individuals, and they are very good and very encouraging. Not unfre* 
quently, when foreigners are gathered together, one of their number, already 
graduated into citizenship and prosperity, is the hero of his story. As is proper, 
he does not suffer in the telling. 

There is no question whatever but that foreigners who succeed become 
very firm Americans, a bit blatant perhaps, but sincere nevertheless. That is 
one respect in which they differ from a few seemingly prosperous Americans 
enamored of Bolshevism. The reason may be that the foreigner worked for 
his own money. The Bolshevist American may have worked, but it was not 
himself he worked. 


AMERICANIZATION 


9 


NO ONE KNOWS WHAT BECOMES OF THE 

FOREIGNERS 

Part 5 , 

The labor of Americanization is lightest when dealing with the successful 
immigrant. But what of the suspicious immigrant who, coming here with his 
old-world hatreds and old-world suspicions, has not become prosperous? There 
are many such. They are enrolled in all sorts of societies concealing by some 
sort of economic camouflage, the bald disposition to seize property by violence. 

It matters little that they receive a wage much beyond their wildest dreams, 
so long as someone is receiving more; or that they enjoy a freedom and 
tolerance they had been formerly denied, so long as they have to work while 
others have leisure. They entered this country as its guests; they would now 
be its masters. 

In itself this type of gentry is scarcely a subject for Americanization. It is 
a group of irreconcilables considered here only as it influences others. Until 
some method is found to dispose of the enemies of the nation—and methods 
we shall surely find—they will always form a dangerous group. 

A second type of immigrant comes to this country with its political and 
social creeds, radical sometimes but constructive, appealing to reason, and 
therefore worthy of a place in our intellectual life. But this type of immi¬ 
grant is subjected from the beginning to propaganda by the discontented and 
it is often paid for. The millennium, he is told, will be slow in coming. Alas, 
that is an inherent defect of a millennium! Why wait for a century of educa¬ 
tion when a torch or a bomb can do the trick in a minute? 

The neophyte is not yet enlisted, but he hears always the same song. He 
cannot turn to Americans because he is cut off from America. Industrially 
he has a place here. Socially or politically he has none. He is with us, not 
of us. For their workmen, who do work, and sometimes work under harsh 
and unjust conditions, shall Americans do nothing? It is not a question of 
charity. It is one of human brotherhood and self-preservation. What engine, 
what organization is there that brings these men and thousands like them into 
a closer touch with American life? They do not nor can they know that the 
untoward things from which they suffer, native Americans suffer from quite as 
well. They are not the exclusive victims. What is done to provide a remedy 
which both foreign and native work might apply together by orderly processes? 

A thinking, sensitive, industrious worker may have come to a country pre¬ 
cisely fitted for him, but the door of understanding is locked and he has no 
key. The key may be language, or a community organization, or a school, or 
all of these. But we need this man. He is willing to work and to think. Under 
unfavorable influences he might become a national liability. Yet we might 
make him a national asset. 

* * * 

Or imagine a third type, young, earnest, enthusiastic, not interested in 
creeds or themes, but anxious to make good. One day he stands on the crowded 
deck approaching New York. As he sees the Statue of Liberty, his heart leaps 
and his eye kindles. He is coming to the land of promise, and he comes with 
high hopes. 

What may happen to him and a hundred thousand like him within a year? 
He is cheated by some unscrupulous contractor of his own race. He gets a 
job and is pelted with stories because all unknown to himself he was engaged 
as a strikebreaker. He is sworn at like a dumb beast by some foreman who 


10 


AMERICANIZATION 


is little less than a beast. Perhaps he has found shelter in some lodging house 
and has had his primary lessons in civics when he has seen repeaters go out 
to vote. He has seen democracy profaned by bullet-headed and square-jawed 
gentlemen who in certain sections of certain cities are the arbiters of our 
political fortunes. He is slowly becoming Americanized, but in the wrong way. 

We need these men, not merely to keep them out of the forces of dis¬ 
content and disorder, but to serve in the real armies of America, the social 
the industrial, the civic armies. What are we doing about it? 

The sterling American may protest. He will say our own boys and girls 
do not always tread the flowery paths of ease. If things go wrong for a time, 
they are not soured. That is true. But American boys and girls are not lost 
in the United States. They can talk, ask questions, get information, and they 
know how. They will not be betrayed into disloyal utterances or acts, because 
they know the country, they believe in it, they know that, even if the fruit rot 
for a season, the trunk and roots are sound. And they have a home some¬ 
where. The foreigner had his home and friends in another land and here he 
may have none. 

♦ * * 

No one knows what becomes of the foreigner. Some are millionaires, and 
we hope most of them are prosperous. But let us not forget. The other day 
in one of the great American cities there was a very big convention. Hun¬ 
dreds of thousands were represented there. They fought and quarreled, to And 
how violently they could frame a platform expressing detestation of this coun¬ 
try—the United States—the country that gave them a home. Probably not 
one of them could have been dragged out of the United States today, but they 
wanted to destroy its government. 

Communism, anarchism, Bolshevism were the politics and religion of that 
convention. And, in spite of the occasional so-called American, it was in effect 
a convention of foreigners, who viewed the institutions, politics, and laws of 
this country. They had learned to see them through European spectacles, or 
sometimes through their own experiences within our country. 

A few readers may have been interested in this convention. Most of us 
are too busy to attend to such matters as an open conspiracy to destroy the 
Government that protects our life and property. The ordinary man would 
have been more upset if his wife had served him with a cold cup of coffee 
or if his tailor had forgotten to sew a button on his coat. But whatever the 
reason or the fault, one thing is sure. The foreigners of that convention are 
a menace. They are strangers in this country. 

No. Americanization is not philanthropy. Neither is it a preachment of 
love and charity for individuals, native or foreign-born. It is a measure of self- 
preservation. It is a call for Americans to forget for a little while their indi¬ 
vidual interests, and think of the interests of the hundred million people. Each 
can get his share as a part of that hundred million. He must think and act 
for those who wish the country well, who if they do not understand its insti¬ 
tutions, are willing to learn. If they have been denied fair industrial oppor¬ 
tunity, decent housing, ordinary tolerance, decent social treatment, then Ameri¬ 
cans must stand by them and protect them. Not for the foreigner must things 
be done, so much as for the nation. 


AMERICANIZATION 


11 


THESE ARE THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS 

Part 6 

The more we think of Americanization, the more we begin to feel the 
futility of mere instruction. It is not a difficult thing to teach a man or woman 
a language. It is quite possible to give him some lessons in civics, in the 
form of our Government, and the names of some officials. We can put 
him through a course in naturalization that will enable him to pass a fair 
examination. Yet we feel the insufficiency of this process in making an en¬ 
thusiastic, loyal American, however effective the formal lessons may be. 

We are bound to conclude that Americanization is a sort of developing 
process, dependent as much on the place a man lives in and the people with 
whom he associates as upon the instruction he receives. If every foreigner 
lives among loyal Americans of high character, that’s the kind of American 
he would be apt to become. A very intelligent foreigner was asked what his 
objections to the term “Americanization” were. He replied: “Well, I have 
met several Americans lately, and as I suppose Americanization means becom¬ 
ing the sort of men they are, I felt I should rather not.” All of which points 
to the one conclusion that one of the best ways of making good Americans out 
of foreigners is to make all Americans themselves worthy of America. 

* ♦ Sf! 

There are all kinds of foreigners and all kinds of natives, and the line that 
divides them never corresponds to the lines that separate virtue from vice, 
selfishness from genetosity, narrow egoism from social vision. Have we not, 
perhaps, been overstressing the ills of the foreigner and neglecting our own 
civic health? 

These are rhetorical questions. There is but one answer: We have a great 
deal of native illiteracy, especially in rural sections. But who vote against 
an adequate tax rate for schools? We have foolish laws. But who elects the 
legislators? We have undesirable judges and executives sometimes. But 
through whose indifference were they put into their places? Evidently we all 
stand in need of Americanization. 

Except for some special instruction, the Americanization of the foreigner 
may go hand in hand with that of the native. Both need to have a conception 
of the unique principles which determined the establishment of our Govern¬ 
ment, of its peculiar importance to the world’s civilization, of its dependence 
on intelligent popular interest, and of the supreme duty and prudential wis¬ 
dom of giving the Government and its affairs a great deal of our time and our 
attention. 

These are the fundamental things. In addition, for the foreigner, there 
must be instruction in English, an understanding of the different departments 
of government, of the names and duties of officials, and a review of our coun¬ 
try’s economic development. Aside from this special instruction, the foreigner 
and the American together must have a machinery of some kind so organized 
as to permit them to meet together, talk together, and even work together, 
for the common betterment of their community. For the next two or three 
years there will be excellent reason for such an organization. 

The war brought a wonderful response to the nation’s demands for con¬ 
tributions of time and of money. With the armistice came a natural reaction. 
But there are new disturbances within our borders. They furnish a new motive 
as urgent to renewed activity as does the war itself. 

The discontent about us is based on a variety of causes familiar to us all. 


12 


AMERICANIZATION 


■ya 

We are just now passing through a sort of panic. The troubled conditions 
inseparable from a fearful war have started all sorts of men and women to 
make greater demands. No class has escaped it. For a time men are for¬ 
getting to have faith in their fellows. No one wants to compromise. Each 
wants his pound of flesh, and a little more. The race, even the American race, 
is passing through a mania of greed. Yet, with a little patience, a little rea¬ 
sonableness, we could be on the eve of the most prosperous period of our 
history. We need faith—faith in our Government, in society, in ourselves. 

* * * 

Reference has already been made to a recent communist convention, 
deliberately dedicated to a propaganda of destruction by force. The ordinary 
American is surprised. He blinks his eyes in wonder to see if he is awake. 
He begins to ask himself what is wrong with the Government. What is the 
Government doing about it? It never occurs to him that the Government is 
not an exterior instrument, that it is his Government. His real question ought 
to be: What am I, and the rest who are the Government, going to do about 
it? He hears the glib arguments of the professional agitator and doesn’t know 
how to answer precisely. He has faith in the country; he loves the flag. But 
he lacks knowledge. He does not know what to do. He needs to be Ameri¬ 
canized. 

* * ♦ 

Americanization might well begin on this civic issue. The personal interests 
of individuals must take a back seat. In every harmony must be repeated 
a single theme. The democracy of America must live. It is a theme learned 
but partially from text or teacher. To be really learned^ it must be lived. We 
must arrange to make that life possible. Such an organization can be created. 

We Americans are individualistic. That is not a bad thing. But indi¬ 
vidualism which is mere self-seeking is even a greater foe to democracy than 
active opposition. A democracy will arouse itself in the face of opposition, 
and defeat it. But in the face of deadly indifference it will do nothing. A 
democratic society, under such conditions, would merely die of dry rot. There¬ 
fore, in another article—after discussing just what this great thing is which 
we must preserve for the sake of the foreigner and ourselves—there will be 
suggested a form of organization which would take the individuals of a neigh¬ 
borhood out of themselves, and unify them into an agent of co-operative action. 


AMERICANIZATION 


13 


EQUAL JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY, ESSENTIAL 

Part 7 

The Government of our Democracy as first established in the United States 
was a venturesome experiment. Even then the fringe of seacoast with its 
several States was a large area for its initiation. 

Since its establishment this Government has withstood the most extraor¬ 
dinary trials. The country has become almost a continent. The population 
is enormous, yet often is thinly scattered and again congested in large cities. 
It is a population of extremes. Millions and millions of people, speaking every 
language, of every race, from every nation, have come within its bounds. The 
officials at the capital are inaccessible to the great majority of the people. 
The early political activities have expanded and multiplied into the most 
complex social functions, undertaken sometimes by the nation, sometimes by 
the State, sometimes by the local community. And the Government has with¬ 
stood great wars at home and abroad. 

Yet it has survived every crisis. In the beginning it protected property 
and insured safety. It has done it unfailingly. It is doing many other things 
as well. To every new demand for social betterment which the people desired 
it has adapted itself. It will adapt itself to as many more as the people ask in 
the future. 

♦ » * 

An autocracy, with its selected efficient officers, the force of a large stand¬ 
ing army, the benefits of a continuous directing dynasty, might have done 
these things. But to have accomplished them and yet preserved the inestimable 
privilege of an untrammeled democracy is a miracle. And the greatness of the 
miracle is that, in thus preserving a democracy for all its people, the United 
States has preserved democracy for the world. 

The principles of democracy are equal justice and equal opportunity for 
all men of all degree. The people do not themselves legislate, judge, execute. 
For one hundred millions this would mean chaos. But they are free to elect, 
directly or indirectly, as they may decide, their legislators, judges and execu¬ 
tives. 

In a more profound sense, ours is a democracy of the people. The charac¬ 
ter of the people must decide the character of the government, just as it de¬ 
cides the character of the nation. The form of our government is near per¬ 
fection. But the form in itself guarantees nothing. The people determine 
wisely and honestly only if they are themselves wise and honest. 

The government will be a good government if those who own it love it 
and work for it, and if they labor to make their fellows love it and work for 
it. It can be made a poor government. Then the fault lies where it belongs. 
No one man in this democracy can wrap his toga about him and stalk away 
saying, “I have done my duty, let others do what they will.” He is in the same 
boat with the rest, and he can not save himself alone. Not only must he be a 
good citizen, but he must make the other one as good as he, or he goes down 
with him. That is Americanization—making yourself and every other one you 
can worthy of America. Truly the burden is heavy upon the people of a 
democracy, but the reward is great. 

♦ * * 

Truths like these are very obvious. All fundamental and profound things 
are obvious. That, perhaps, is why they receive so little attention. We are 


14 


AMERICANIZATION 


heirs to a wonderful possession. We have done but little towards its creation. 
We just take it for granted, as we do the sky or the air. Yet, though it took 
labor and blood to make this Government of ours, though its history goes 
back, centuries and centuries back, we can lose it easily. If every one would 
think only of himself and nothing of his country, we could lose it in a genera¬ 
tion. 


We have inefficiency, waste, injustice. They are reminders to us of our 
own indifference. We are learning; we will have to keep on learning for a 
long time; and we will make mistakes. We rise to great heights on occasion, 
but we shall in time learn always to travel a level road in loftier altitudes. 
That time will come when the process of Americanization has gone further. 
But we have advanced. Think of the world today and a century ago! Man 

is not judged by standards of perfection, else we should all be beasts. 

Therefore, though at this time we suffer, we must not lose faith. These 

fiuent critics that have come here trained in philosophies of destruction that 

they learned abroad, want to destroy the thing we have. They offer us instead 
something we do not want; government for a class, a creed that criminals 
accept with joy, a gospel of hate, made by men who know nothing of America, 
its genius or its spirit. They can see only the things our country has left yet 
undone. To the deeds accomplished they are blind. It might be called to their 
attention that even the faults we have are little things if we but look abroad. 
Not one of all these critics willingly would dare surrender the home he finds 
here to go to any other country. 

We are so much stronger, so much happier, so much better placed today 
than any other nation of the world, that even with all the faults we have, 
democracy stands triumphant. These things we owe to the wealth of the land, 
to the sturdy spirits that moved our frontiers from the Mississippi to the West¬ 
ern ocean, to the wisdom of the fathers, to the form of government we enjoy. 
As we become better Americans we shall learn not only our duty to the future 
but our obligation to the past. And the foreigners who wish to be good citi¬ 
zens must share the lessons with us. 

♦ * ♦ 

When our shops and factories are open for instruction for the illiterate 
and non-English speaking foreigner, when our schools no longer figure as 
wearisome incursions on the taxpayer, but rather as a splendid investment to 
make a better nation; when men and women, employers and employes, meet 
in constant conference to discuss their problems; when strikes and lockouts 
will be looked upon as only the most remote, unscientific methods of solution; 
when forums are established, and men and women, thoughtless of class dis¬ 
tinction, will join in their communities to make a better city; when civic duty 
will not be a single annual vote at the ballot box, but a constant theme for 
unselfish thinking and unselfish labor, we shall all be in a fair way toward a 
real program of Americanization. 

All this seems an extravagant picture, yet every feature of it is being done 
somewhere, while nowhere are all these features organized into one com¬ 
posite whole. When that day comes there will be little room for the advance 
agent of professional discontent. He will not be abused; he will be laughed 
out of his corner pulpit. 

All these manifold activities will be developed as they become worth while. 
Every American wants the safety of his own property and the security of his 
own person assured. He wants industry to be profitable, whether he is em¬ 
ployer or wage-earner. He wants opportunity for leisure and facilities for its 
enjoyment. He wants efficient government and honest administration. He has 
come to think that it is hard to have them together, so he feels he must grab 
to get his share. Yet, if he and every one else could enjoy them together, he 


AMERICANIZATION 


15 


would be happy. He would even go further, and pay a considerable premium 
to insure their possession for everybody. Yet these things are possible— 
possible if every one would work together to get them. The premium to bo 
paid is not money, but time, labor and unselfish public interest. To have this 
faith, to back it up by works, to labor for its consummation among foreigners 
and native born, is real Americanism. 


16 


AMERICANIZATION 


ORGANIZING A CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR 
AMERICANIZATION 

Part 8 

Every organization must be planned with an eye to attendant conditions. 
A program for Americanization, therefore, would vary according to the size of 
the community, the character of its population and a variety of other consid¬ 
erations. 

In any case the organization may be: 

The general or central committee plan alone, or 

The general committee acting in an advisory capacity to a number of local 
community organizations. 

THE GENERAL OR CENTRAL COMMITTEE ALONE 

In a city of 50,000 or 500,000 the central committee plan offers no diffi¬ 
culty for organization. The general function of a central committee would 
be to get together representatives of the civic bureaus and departments and 
the various public or semi-public organizations whose work relates to Ameri¬ 
canization past or prospective; then by conference to arrange a program for 
each. 

For example, the committees may initiate a program for instruction to 
non-English speaking foreigners during working hours. It would not deal 
with employers and would take up the matter with a Chamber of Commerce 
or the Board of Trade. This body would then undertake the entire labor of 
interviewing employers and promoting a propaganda for this sort of instruction. 

In this case the central committee would do comparatively little as a com¬ 
mittee. It is, in fact, a bond of connection between the bodies represented 
in it who work more intelligently together as a result. If a committee is very 
active, or if it have an aggressive, intelligent secretary, it will invite and initi¬ 
ate or suggest new activities. 

* * * 

One program of the central committee, illustrative of other possible ones, 
is submitted. 

There will be some interested group at the beginning which should ap¬ 
proach the Mayor or some other official authority and discuss the importance 
of the Americanization movement. 

In order to give the seal of authority to the central committees this origi¬ 
nal group should then request the Mayor to establish a preliminary committee 
on organization. If their understanding be a sufficiently intimate one, the per¬ 
sonnel of that committee might well be suggested in advance. 

On this preliminary committee lies the labor of appointing the regular 
committee—a work which should be done slowly. The initiation of the Ameri¬ 
canization movement must not wait on the completion of the membership. 

Among the persons included in the membership should be one or two who 
have a fairly good program of work ready at hand which has been arranged 
in conference with the school superintendent. This permits a plan of work to 
be started without delay. 

:)> 4c :|c 

Care must be taken to exclude mere faddists, hysterical or emotional indi¬ 
viduals whose interest is very intense for a brief period only, and finally, any 


AMERICANIZATION 


17 


who attach themselves to public movements merely for whatever social or 
political distinction their membership may carry with it for them. 

The regular committee, when finally organized, should be chosen with ref¬ 
erence to the representative character of its members. In all cases, they should 
accept nomination only with the clear understanding that they are willing to 
do some real work. 

First come the local departments—the schools, the court of naturalization, 
the recreational activities and park department, the city librarian, the depart¬ 
ments of fire, police and health and (if there is such a separate department) 
that of housing. 

♦ * * 

Next should follow representatives of organized labor and of organized 
employers. The attendance of the local members of the Federal and State 
Legislatures should be invited, although it could scarcely be expected that 
their services will be called upon except when legislation is concerned. 

If there be one or more dominant foreign groups they should be repre¬ 
sented if possible by two or three persons, foreign born citizens who have their 
confidence and respect and who are possessed of a real civic interest. 

The press is always willing to co-operate; for this special purpose, how¬ 
ever, it might be desirable to have persons with special knowledge and special 
interest in Americanization prepare the material for newspaper publication. 
Finally, the central committee should represent the civic associations and 
women’s clubs. 

After the organization has been formed, a statement should be submitted, 
prepared in advance for those interested, showing what has been done toward 
conscious Americanization. 

If the committee would do nothing else but to familiarize its various mem¬ 
bers with what is being done, it would be worth while. At the sessions that 
follow provision must be made for new undertakings. 

* * * 

At this stage someone always calls for a survey. Surveys are expensive. 
They take a long time and frequently when they are complete, conditions have 
so changed as to make them of little value. 

If a survey is insisted upon, let it by all means be encouraged. But its 
completion should not be made an excuse for delay. A great deal can be ac¬ 
complished long before a careful survey could be completed. 

The program outlined in a later article is not exclusive, but sufficiently 
extensive to keep an ordinary committee working for more than a year. Of 
course, the program will be modified, expanded at one point or abandoned at 
another, as necessity requires or opportunity permits. 

It is very much more important; that the central committee should do only 
a few things well than that it should undertake a great many things which 
would exhaust themselves in the mere planning. 


18 


AMERICANIZATION 


THE WORK WHICH A CENTRAL COMMITTEE 

CAN DO 

Part 9 

The work of the central committee should be divided into six sections: 

1. PROPAGANDA AND PUBLICITY. As soon as the committee has been 
able to make a definite statement of the problems of Americanization, its pur¬ 
pose and method, then the members should be prepared to enlist, so far as 
possible, if not the aid, at least the interest of the people at large. It can be 
done through the press, including the foreign newspapers, through the churches, 
the clubs, and if possible by the establishment of one or more public forums. 

The committee should also prepare its own pamphlets. These had better 
be issued as separate leaflets; the statements in them call attention to the 
subject and show the need for action. Every statement should be presented 
in brief, crisp sentences. Until people are exceedingly interested in the sub¬ 
ject, they will not read any lengthy discussions. In every pamphlet issued 
there should always appear the program proposed for execution. 

2. LEGISLATION. Legislation and regulation may be Federal, State or 
local. Some of it is exceedingly important. Few, except interested persons, 
know much about it until it is adopted. At this time there is pending in Wash¬ 
ington certain legislation regulating the method of immigration. Its sup¬ 
porters and opponents are equally positive concerning its values and defects. 
Certainly this proposed legislation, whether good or ill, merits public atten¬ 
tion, although at this time very little is being given to it. Federal legislation 
of some kind for immigrants is bound to be adopted and it ought to be under¬ 
stood and aided or opposed. 

The legislation in the various States is fragmentary. Only recently has 
California compelled the attendance of foreign minors under 21. Several States 
had done this before, but the majority have done nothing. One of the things 
most needed in the Americanization movement today is the establishment of 
a committee to circulate all information on proposed legislation, so far as it 
affects Americanization. Besides, it might examine such legislation as has 
been adopted in various States and compare it, so as to prepare a model bill 
that might receive a united support. 

Besides legislation for foreigners, this central committee is interested in 
all forms of legislation looking to the removal of industrial injustice or the 
improvement of social conditions. The central committee of a community 
should not only be familiar with prospective legislation, but should, through 
a subcommittee, determine what legislation ought to be initiated or supported 
through its own activities and agencies. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

3. EDUCATION. The school department is the most important official 
department upon which the committee must depend. A wide-awake school 
superintendent will be glad to inform the committee, not only of what the 
schools are doing, but what is much more important, of what they are failing 
to do. The limitations of the school in Americanization will be considered. 
It is sufficient here only to point out that any form of school instruction which 
is carried on at inconvenient hours, in inconvenient places, or with teachers 
poorly equipped, and which is insufficiently financed, cannot make more than 
a casual contribution to the solving of the problem. 

Both the schools and the libraries are important conscious educational 
instruments. Both of them can be used as a channel of communication with 
the various city departments and with the foreign groups. In one Eastern 


AMERICANIZATION 


ly 

city the police found a great deal of difficulty in keeping fire escapes on tall 
tenements clear. Warnings and arrests seemed to be of little value. As soon 
as the school and the branch libraries took the matter in hand and explained 
to the families, through the children, the reason for the regulation and the 
importance of observing it, there was an immediate improvement far greater 
than the police department had been able to get for a period of several months. 

4. CO-OPERATION WITH INDUSTRY. Business people are not disposed 
to change their organizations or reconstruct their methods unless they feel 
that there is some real value to be gained by so doing. Long experience has 
taught many of them to be wary of enthusiastic visionaries. It is not a wise 
policy to approach a business establishment and ask them to undertake any 
special deeds of work for one group of employes more than another, merely 
as a “matter of good will.” The thing to do at the beginning is to show them 
that what they are asked to do has been already done by successful concerns 
and that these concerns have approved it after trial. 

Among the successful experiments has been provision for the instruction 
of employes, especially those who are illiterate or who cannot speak the Eng¬ 
lish language. There are places in the United States where instruction is 
given to them even at the expense of the employers’ time, not as a matter of 
philanthropy, but merely as a means of getting a more intelligent body of 
workers. 

The schools will be the natural instrument by which this method of in¬ 
struction will be initiated, but in promoting a program it is well to have the 
support not only of the Chamber of Commerce or of a Board of Trade, but 
of such eminent public spirited citizens as are really interested in educational 
possibilities. Even where special legislation permits the imposition of such 
instruction, it is always best carried on when carried on with the conscious 
co-operation and desire of the employer. 

Once a business man is convinced that any proposed process will really 
give results worth while he will go a long ways to make whatever adjustments 
are necessary to bring it about. He does this every day in other matters, and 
he will do it with education when he is satisfied that education will be a profit¬ 
able investment both for himself and those who work for him. 

* * ♦ 

Another more difficult problem which confronts the central committee 
is the establishment of standing committees between employers and employes 
for continuous discussions and conferences on business policies. There is no 
question that the so-called arbitration committees usually fail merely because 
their activities are introduced at a time when passions run high and when a 
strike or a lockout may be threatening. If it were possible, on the other hand, 
to have meetings which were not tied up with any special emergency, but 
which honestly sought at all times to enlarge the viewpoint both of the em¬ 
ployer and laborer, they could do incalculable good. 

There never was a time when employers were more desirous of establish¬ 
ing such conditions as are possible not merely for their own profit, but for 
the well being of every one connected with their business. The legislation in¬ 
troduced from time to time for better working hours, for improved sanitation, 
for safety appliances, frequently received as much support from employers’ 
organizations as from others. This attitude is a significant one. Though the 
central committee should never undertake to push itself where it is not 
wanted, nevertheless it should be equally alive to the opportunity of serving 
when such service would be appreciated. 

5. RECREATION WITH FOREIGNERS. Through the medium of educa- 


20 


AMERICANIZATION 


tion and civic bodies, especially women’s clubs, local foreign colonies should 
be encouraged to have fairs containing exhibits of craftwork, fiestas and pa¬ 
rades, and such other activities as are native to the foreign group. These may 
be held day and evening in co-operation with other city departments. On a 
combined basis of friendliness, parents and visitors should meet periodically. 
The schools would be an appropriate meeting place, though the schools need 
not be exclusively selected. The committee would have to make clear the im¬ 
propriety of any attitude savoring of patronage on the part of those who work 
with the foreigners. 

6. FINANCE. Americanization is a public function and should be paid 
for by public funds. 

The central committee should meet regularly and a report for each meeting 
should be ready. Each subcommittee should either be prepared to indicate 
definite progress made or to permit some other subcommittee to be appointed 
in its stead. 

Once a policy has been established, the time available had best be devoted 
to its completion before taking up new issues. 


AMERICANIZATION 


21 


ORGANIZATION OF LOCAL COMMUNITY CEN¬ 
TERS FOR AMERICANIZATION 

Part 10 

The advantage of a single general committee is that its members can be 
called together and, with the personnel wisely chosen, its business transacted 
without friction. But it merely co-ordinates activities already existing except 
for its added functions of legislation, publicity and recreation. It may im¬ 
prove the conditions of instruction, it may multiply library opportunities, but 
these activities would have continued in any case. 

It has been stated several times that Americanization is a process of 
development, not a course of instruction; that foreigners lack opportunity for 
working together with their neighbors who may or may not be of their own 
type, and that in some way an organization should be created to permit just 
such a development. 

One general committee cannot do it, not even by assigning some repre¬ 
sentative in each district. That has been tried and it has failed. A real com¬ 
munity organization has to have free control over its own affairs. In its very 
nature it is the quintessence of democracy. But a local community is a diffi¬ 
cult thing to create. It is untrained, and an untrained democracy in action 
is a fearful and wonderful thing. 

♦ * ♦ 

The difficulty of establishing one center is formidable enough, but in a 
large city the difficulties are multiplied. It is no easy thing to establish 250 
centers theoretically representing 1000 persons each in a city of a quarter 
million. As the best of attendance of population in a local center may not 
exceed 10 per cent of the residents, that might imply one hundred people, 
which would be a fair representative number. But one hundred people 
gathered together need training to accomplish anything worth while. 

Yet despite the difficulties, themselves an eloquent testimony of our own 
inadequate preparation as a people for organized self-control, it is possible to 
establish community centers with complete right of self-direction, subject only 
to such conditions as may determine establishment. Not only are such local 
communities possible, but they are desirable, even necessary. How else is the 
American or the would-be American going to learn to get together with his 
fellows, confer with them, work with them for some community good? In what 
better way will the alien begin to discover he has a right and a proper sphere 
in his neighborhood unless he learns by trial? 

4: i): ^ 

And once these communities do begin, they find enough to do. Sometimes 
they try to do too much. The improvement of their streets, the organization 
of the neighborhood dance, the staging of a local holiday, the operation of the 
public forum, suggest even more ambitious designs. Programs for local health, 
for a local drama or for co-operative purchasing are attempted. Things like 
these the people of England and Belgium have learned to do very successfully. 
Because of our individualistic training we have not yet learned to organize 
our recreations. We lack patient, sacrificing, competent managers. 

A community council needs expert advice, though a true council will not 
tolerate even expert direction even from a central committee. It must have 
some simple form of organization, a charter determining admission as mem¬ 
ber, and an organization permitting not only the selection of the usual officers 
but'their union, through representatives, with other councils and with the cen- 


22 


AMERICANIZATION 


tral committee. In these days when everybody is organizing for his trade, his 
business, even his profession, and very few are organizing for the public good, 
it is appropriate that community councils should be established and multiplied, 

^ ^ ^ 

If the central committee could have the co-operation even of a few suc¬ 
cessful working councils, they would make some pleasing discoveries. The 
peculiar helpless sensation of dealing with things at long range, like feeling 
the quality of velvet with the end of a cane, would be succeeded by a sense of 
confidence. The community might not reach two or four thousand people, 
but it would be in touch at the beginning with a hundred or more critical, 
breathing personalities whom the Americanization campaign was intended to 
serve directly. 

For example, a forum in each center established in the auditorium of an 
elementary school, would permit the giving of a message that would reach 
directly the ears for which it was intended. A city might be divisible into three 
hundred communities. If but thirty of them were in successful operation they 
would affect the welfare of the whole city. 


AMERICANIZATION 


23 


COMMUNITY COUNCILS AS LOCAL UNITS 

Part 11 

The handicap of modern democracy is the bigness of its job. Most people, 
beyond voting once a year, have little opportunity, even if they have the 
desire, to do anything for better government. A single person is but one, 
and among a thousand, not to say among two or three hundred thousand, he 
feels puny indeed. But tie him up with a lot of others, neighbors who live in 
his street, and establish some organic connection with a central organization 
that can reach the seats of the mighty, and you have an engine of power. 
Multiply in theory these little councils by ten or twenty or fifty and you have 
a force among the people who, if they wanted the Right, could get the Right 
when they sought it. 

No prospective council member should be eligible unless he submits to two 
conditions: loyalty unqualified to the democracy, and an agreement to give 
some spare time to its affairs. Councils are usually authorized by a charter 
from the central committee, first provisional in its character, and later on 
evidence of interest in the community and in the State made permanent. A 
local community neither gives money to the central committee nor receives 
such money, save for some special service. 

The establishment of community councils in cities is yet in its first state, 
though in rural districts conditions are more favorable. The difficulties of 
their establishment are sometimes less than the difficulties involved in their 
continuance. The members quarrel at times. There is always that crowning 
nuisance of every public body, the self-confessed expert in the subtleties of 
parliamentary law. There are attempts on the eve of a political campaign to 
“rush” such councils into favoring the fortunes of some political candidate— 
though that is usually prohibited in the charter. 

Community centers, like nations, wax fat and sometimes suddenly die, 
even at a youthful age. All these things happen. Community centers, being 
little democracies, serve the people about as well as they are served by the 
people. They are not an invention from on high to cure the evils of indifference 
or selfish citizenship. All that they can do is to afford an opportunity for 
better civic service among those disposed to give it. 

The functions of the central committee in a city in which the establish¬ 
ment of community councils is planned has been only temporarily suggested. 
The central committee would in effect be undertaking the responsibility of 
establishing these councils. It would provide the two forms of a charter, 
temporary and permanent, already referred to. It would prepare a simple form 
of by-laws for the regulation of these councils, and in these by-laws would 
require that membership should be open only to those who would give un¬ 
qualified loyalty to this government and would be willing to give some of their 
spare time to its service. 

* * * 

If the councils succeeded in their operation, they would, of course, need 
something to occupy them constantly. Merely to listen to the speakers of a 
forum or to indulge in discussions as to the nature of government are activities 
that soon exhaust themselves. Therefore the central committee would have 
to prepare suggestive programs and these programs would outline the various 
things which a council could do for its local community. 

The fact that a number of people gather together ready to do some service, 
but puzzled as to what they can accomplish, is another evidence of how little 


24 


AMERICANIZATION 


we have learned as to the organization of human forces. It is one reason why 
professional managers, administrators and organizers and executives command 
so high a consideration in the employment market. It is not that the things 
that they are able to do are wonderful in themselves, but that relatively few 
persons have given the subject attention. 

Before arranging a program it would be well for the council to communi¬ 
cate with other organizations of the kind, to learn what has been accomplished 
elsewhere. There is one overhead organization at 2205 Municipal Building, 
New York, which will give definite suggestions on request. 

Whoever undertakes the task of an Americanization campaign might well 
establish one community council for experimentation in his own neighborhood. 
The writer has seen successful ones in operation, and they are impressive. For 
the Americanization movement no better method could well be conceived than 
an organization of this kind, where men and women learn to capitalize their 
little abilities and their littler efforts into large ones through the magic of co¬ 
operative effort. It is a training for sane, orderly democracy. It teaches the 
native Americans the dependence of government on the loyal support of those 
who live under it. It gives any community a right to respectful attention, 
because it speaks for the public welfare not for any special interest of its 
individual members. 

In a program of Americanization, the community council is worth a trial. 


AMERICANIZATION 


25 


SCHOOL CONDITIONS THAT NEED TO BE 

CORRECTED 

Part 12 

When people speak of Americanization in schools they usually think of 
the teaching given to adult foreigners in evening schools. In these evening 
classes the aim is to give the foreigners the rudiments of the English lan¬ 
guage and some knowledge of our form of government. 

Sometimes this instruction is extended in order that a foreigner may leai n 
somethinig about the conveniences of the place in which he lives. He learns 
for the first time that there are libraries, parks, playgrounds, clinics and other 
neighborhood facilities open to him. Some school systems even give special 
courses to prepare foreigners for the necessary examinations for naturalization 

Of course, the work of these evening Americanization classes differs greatly 
in different places. Even where it is well done, the figures of attendance 
usually show a great deal of waste effort. Though the attendance is good, 
it is not made up of the same people. There is very little satisfaction in giv¬ 
ing instruction to an attendance of fifteen, where the teacher is confronted 
constantly by new faces. Nobody gets much out of it. 

♦ * * 

The school people are always trying to reduce the waste in teaching 
foreigners. Most of them agree that in the past the schools have suffered 
from three great faults. The system has been inflexible; the teachers have 
not been especially trained; there never has been sufficient money available 
to operate these classes properly. 

By saying the schools are inflexible we mean that the classes are estab¬ 
lished only in school buildings and only at certain hours. An evening school 
is not always situated in the most convenient place for the foreign worker. 
A foreign man or woman may be anxious to learn, but the working hours may 
give them an opportunity only at some other time of the day than when classes 
are in session. 

The first thing to do in our schools is to establish classes wherever they 
will be attended. Not in school buildings only, but in houses, offices, shops 
or halls. The classes should be given at any time desired if there are sufficient 
pupils, whether at nine in the morning or nine at night or sometime between. 

Of course, earnest seekers after knowledge will adapt themselves to any 
conditions. There are foreigners that will go to a school anywhere and they 
will manage to do it at any hour. These are the people who always succeed; 
they have initiative and activity. Unfortunately the world is not altogether 
made up of such people. The foreigner who has least initiative and activity 
most needs Americanization. 

Besides this, we must remember that evening classes are not always 
attractive even with a good teacher. Men and women are pretty tired after 
a day’s work. They start in at the beginning of the season full of enthusi¬ 
asm, but after awhile they find the counter attractions, especially in cities, 
more tempting than evening classes. In this respect the foreigner is very much 
like the native born citizen. 

♦ * * 

The greatest difficulty of the classes for Americanization is lack of teach¬ 
ers trained for the work. It used to be thought that if a teacher could do 
nothing else, she ought to be put in charge of the foreigners. It was consid¬ 
ered a good place for a beginner. But there is no kind of teaching that re¬ 
quires more technical preparation, more study, more understanding of persons 
than the teaching of foreigners. 

Only teachers especially trained should be permitted to engage in the 


26 


AMERICANIZATION 


work, yet there are very few places in this country where even the most super¬ 
ficial training is provided. 

It is absurd to look for trained teachers who will make this a life work 
unless they are decently paid. Yet the evening schools are often called the 
“step-daughters” of the school system. Usually they get the remnants of money 
available, and if other school accounts are short, they are made up by trans¬ 
ferring from the evening school balances. 

No one can expect a teacher to undertake the work as a profession who is 
paid on the basis of a dollar or two dollars an hour for two hours a day. For 
this reason one of the great needs of the school organization is to make the 
teaching of foreigners a special profession and to pay it properly. One method 
of trying to do that is being tried in Los Angeles 

* * * 

The way to organize schools in teaching foreigners is to organize them 
so as to meet every need. The slogan for the system should be “teach any 
subject that is needed at any time necessary and in any place convenient.” 
Education is a type of merchandise in which the profit is greatest when the 
goods are most widely distributed. 

A modern school principal will not consider Americanization merely in 
terms of classes for instruction. He will make the building in which the 
classes are carried on a center for the community. He will be interested in 
everything that goes on in his neighborhood. He will try to help the people 
to get together. His school will be the heart of the community life. 

He will never be satisfied that his work is completed so long as the for¬ 
eign pupils remain segregated in classes. Only when they are lost among 
the other persons of the neighborhood so as to be indistinguishable from them, 
when they have been enrolled in high schools where they have been accorded 
a place with their native born fellows, will he feel that the work of American¬ 
ization is completed. 

Within the last few years the schools of Los Angeles have taken a great 
interest in Americanization. Much of the credit for what has been done for 
foreigners is due to Miss Ruby Boughman, supervisor of immigrant educa¬ 
tion. She is familiar with the details of the work under her direction and she 
has prepared an interesting statement of what has been so far accomplished. 


AMERICANIZATION 


27 


WHAT LOS ANGELES IS DOING IN 
AMERICANIZATION 

BEGINNING WITH THE SCHOOLS 

Part 1 

BY RUBY M. BOUGHMAN 

As early as 1887 the Los Angeles city school department recognized in a 
desultory and incidental sort of way the city’s need of adequate provision for 
elementary adult education. A few persons in the teaching corps had per¬ 
ceived the task of working out an answer to the problems of adult education 
long before the catastrophes of the war period had attracted popular attention 
to the appalling truths concerning adult illiteracy and lack of knowledge of 
our national institutions. 

The organization of a department of immigrant education in 1916 was 
simply a segregation of the activities that belong to the field of adult educa¬ 
tion in order that special attention might be given to the questions arising in 
this altogether new and uncharted phase of education. 

The elementary evening schools were included in the department because 
they formed at the time the chief bulk of the work with adults. A few spo¬ 
radic experiments outside their limits indicated the lines along which develop¬ 
ment might be pursued. 

The first public school daytime class for foreign mothers was organized in 
1914 and the “Home Teacher act” was passed and the first home teacher be¬ 
gan work in 1915. The “neighborhood school” and its concomitant socialized 
processes began its development not much earlier, thus furnishing an ideal 
educational background for special adult work. 

* * * 

One of the pioneer movements in the whole country toward a broader con¬ 
cept of our obligation to the immigrant was the establishing of what is com¬ 
monly called the diploma method of naturalization. 

This plan, originated in one of the elementary evening schools, has been 
developed in an evening high school to the point where it not only secures 
the admission of foreign born persons to citizenship in the United States, but 
furnishes them formally with information that presumably helps them to make 
an intelligent use of that citizenship after it has been acquired. 

As originally organized the country over, the old-time night schools, meet¬ 
ing at a set hour, afforded opportunity only to that small fraction of our for¬ 
eign population which was ambitious enough, energetic enough, economically 
free enough, to fit into the very rigid machinery of those schools. 

They were opportunity schools for the few. They assumed no responsi¬ 
bility for the arousing of ambition, the stirring of a completer sense of respon¬ 
sibility and opportunity in the alien members of the community. They offered 
no freedom of adjustment in time or subject matter to fit peculiar needs of 
different groups. 

♦ Hs * 

The great bulk, however, of foreign born population is separated from the 
great democratization process by the deep gulf fixed by their ignorance of the 
English language. To this immense number the public school owes a flexible, 
attractive, neighborly, educational opportunity. 

To this end the small intimate night school has been placed close to the 
compact alien groups; classes have been organized in industrial plants of 
various sorts in order that the educational process may fit closely into the needs 
of the worker’s life; classes for house mothers in labor camps have been 
organized, meeting usually in the afternoon and dealing with subjects of fun¬ 
damental interest to mothers and housewives; classes meeting in school houses, 
morning, afternoon or evening, offer to the foreign women who find the school 


28 


AMERICANIZATION 


house a convenient place of meeting all of the public school facilities in cook¬ 
ery, sewing and other household arts. 

This new adult education designed to meet the needs of the American- 
born as well as the foreign-born, accepts the obligation to offer “training in 
any subject useful to citizens at any time and in any place best suited to the 
convenience of those citizens.” 

♦ * * 

There are two viewpoints concerning the method and manner of develop¬ 
ment of classes and schools for adults. The one contemplates a wholesale pro¬ 
ceeding—a blanket arrangement, the organization of a large number of schools 
and classes, and the assignment of a large number of teachers trained or un¬ 
trained to those classes, in the hope that out of the large bulk some portion 
of the work will prove sufficiently vital to become permanent. 

The other viewpoint involves an analysis of the neighborhood situation, 
an assignment, so far as possible, of individual workers especially adapted to 
the peculiar task of that district, a careful adjustment from time to time of 
all plans and procedure to the social conditions. 

The first method of development makes at any given moment a more 
brilliant showing, especially when the initial steps are preceded by a noisy 
publicity campaign which draws students into school in great numbers and as 
quickly loses them. The second is always in a process of construction or 
reconstruction; it suffers all the vicissitudes and variations of human adult 
life, because it is based deliberately on the needs, desires and changes in for¬ 
tune of the human adult life it attempts to serve. 

■. - . * * ♦ 

The work of the past three years in the department of adult elementary 
education has followed the second path; first, because of the conviction in tho 
minds of most of its workers that such a plan of approach and procedure is 
most valid; second, because the department has been compelled to maintain 
a maximum of activity at a minimum expense. It has been a financial neces¬ 
sity to see that each project, large or small, be a going institution in the social 
sense. 

This viewpoint involves also a different attack upon the problem of estab¬ 
lishing right relations between the adult class and its patrons. It abandons 
entirely the loud type of publicity. 

Except for the more or less casual announcement of the opening of the 
night schools in the English and to some extent in the non-English newspapers 
of the city, no publicity campaign was conducted in the fall of 1917-18, and of 
1918-19. Investigations, local and national, had revealed the fact that about 
80 per cent of actual attendants had been attracted to the school through the 
word of friends, neighbors or acquaintances. A shocklngiy greater per cent 
of entrants, attracted by whatsoever means, failed to remain in classes. 

On the other hand, it is always entirely possible to discover near many of 
the schools—sometimes within hailing distance—persons who have never heard 
of its existence. 

The proper sort of publicity has seemed, then, to be this: A reasonably 
social, effectively administered school organization which should command 
the respect of its neighborhood; teachers peculiarly fitted and particularly 
trained for this type of work; an adaptation of subject matter and method to 
the actual needs and desires of the patrons of the school; a quiet, systematic, 
continuous, cordial interpretation of the adult class to its community by the 
principal and teachers. 

The records of attendance, however, can never show the actual social serv¬ 
ice done by any school in any community. The discovery of some tangible 
measuring unit for this most intangible of values and services is one of the 
tasks to which we must set our hands in the next decade. 


AMERICANIZATION 


29 


WHAT LOS ANGELES IS DOING IN 
AMERICANIZATION 

GROUP MEETINGS AND DISTRICT WORKERS 

Part 2 

BY RUBY M. BOUGHMAN 

In their earlier days, the night schools were logically placed in the centers 
of congested foreign population. They developed at first largely along with 
the neighborhood school. These same districts—all in a group in the river 
bottom—attracted naturally every other form of ameliorative social agency— 
branch libraries, clinics, missions, settlement houses, playgrounds. The large 
transient fraction—and its consequent migration—of the population has helped 
to prevent the development of any dangerous group into a social menace. 

These neighborhoods have consequently developed with these years of 
effort a community consciousness and a community self-respect. One of the 
presumably poverty stricken neighborhoods contributed $1500 to a thrift stamp 
campaign; the night school in another contributed $50, and some provisions 
to the French Relief Ship fund alone, organized a Red Cross unit of its own 
by raising funds which made possible the organization of other night school 
units—all this in addition to contributing to the thrift stamp and bond cam¬ 
paigns. These groups are no longer in need of intensive assimilative proc¬ 
esses—they are on their way, traveling under their own power. 

There are within the city limits, on the other hand, many isolated non- 
English groups, strongly in need of closer contact with American neighbors, 
customs, traditions, schools and language. It has seemed wise—so long as 
the school department has only a comparatively small amount of money to de¬ 
vote the supplementaly classes for adults—to remove the emphasis from the 
places where the need has been lessened by the work of years, and to expend 
added energy on the outlying groups so long neglected. 

* * * 

A careful study of these groups has been, of course, a first essential, their 
location, number, permanency, characteristics, needs. Following the policy of 
literal co-operation with all other social agencies the department joined in the 
beginning of such a bit of research made in the early fall of 1917 through the 
efforts of a joint committee headed by a member of the Public Library staff. 

This committee secured the co-operation of representatives from the sev¬ 
eral social agencies of the city. Group meetings of district workers were held 
in various convenient places using school district boundary lines for the most 
part. Through these discussions and direct contributions, a fairly complete 
survey of foreign residents has been compiled. This has been bulked in the 
form of an effective nationality map at the city library, while experts fur¬ 
nished by the State Commission of Immigration and Housing have analyzed 
and tabulated its results in a report. 

This canvass has been directly valuable to the schools in the discovery 
of the districts where work in adult education is most needed and the indica¬ 
tion of obvious streams of both small temporary and larger permanent migra¬ 
tions. It should furnish the suggestion not only for future development of 
adult classes for foreigners and other community center activities, but for 
future similar co-operative surveys. For example, there is a great present 
need for a reliable charting in one easily accessible place of all the recreational 
facilities of the city—commercial, public, and semi-public. 

This specialization in adaptation to neighborhood needs has slowly de¬ 
veloped a new ideal for adult classes: “Anything helpful, any time available, 
any place convenient.” Gradually classes have been organized outside of the 
school room, sometimes supplementing the work of other agencies. Classes 


30 


AMERICANIZATION 


for adults have been held at 11 o’clock in the morning, at 2 o’clock in the 
afternoon and at 9 o’clock at night. The instruction has been varied enough 
to include subjects so widely separated as the care of babies in a class of 
foreign mothers, and lip reading for the hard-of-hearing. 

♦ * * 

Under this concept of their function, the classes for adult wage-earners in 
Los Angeles have thus far gradually divided themselves into seven clearly 
defined groups, namely: 

a. The “night school” varied, however, with respect to the number of 
nights a week and to the hours of meeting and with respect to the subject 
matter of classes, as local needs demand. 

b. The classes for mothers, American and foreign, meeting in the scnooi 
houses, either in the afternoons or evenings, in which subjects of interest to 
house mothers, such as food conservation, care of babies, etc., are taken up. 

c. The labor camp classes for women in the afternoons or mornings and 
for men in the evenings. 

d. The “factory” classes meeting in factories, Pullman car departments, 
paper mills, car barns, laundries, canneries, nurseries. 

e. Tlie cottage classes. 

f. Classes in unusual educationally strategic points: Hospitals, Red Cross 
salvage shop, etc. 

g. Boarding houses of large non-American groups of laborers. 


AMERICANIZATION 


31 


WHAT LOS ANGELES IS DOING IN 
AMERICANIZATION 

Part 3 

IMPORTANCE OF ADULT EDUCATION 

BY RUBY M. BOUGHMAN 

The first essential of successful adult classes is excellence of quality in 
the teaching done by the leaders of those claasses. To further the appreciation 
of excellence in technique in teaching in this particular field two hour confer¬ 
ences have been held as part of the Normal School Saturday extension work 
and university extension work. 

Special committees also of teachers have been assigned to special work on 
various phases of Americanization and other instructions. Attendance at such 
conferences and committee work is, of course, not necessarily productive of 
good teaching, but the figures of attendance at these conferences and com¬ 
mittees are at least indicative of the interest of the teaching community at 
large in this general work of Americanization. 

These conferences serve two purposes: one as regular normal school class 
work, for which normal school credit is given for the continuous semester’s 
work, and the other a general conference which any person or persons inter¬ 
ested in the work of Americanization may drop for as many sessions as 
they wish. 

* 4: * 

The organization of such conferences as extension courses of the normal 
school and of the university was made with an idea of enabling the teacher 
students to receive the so highly valued advanced credits for time and energy 
spent in meetings and study in their especial field of activity—no small item 
in the weekly program of activities for busy teachers who must meet several 
supervisors in several conferences. The employment of teachers interested 
only in the single field of special classes for adults will relieve somewhat the 
pressure of this necessity. 

Teachers, however, cannot live on training. They can be permanently at¬ 
tracted to this work only by an adequate wage. They can afford to take this 
training only in consideration of a fairly remunerative field for that special 
activity. 

♦ * * 

The extension of adult instruction brings its own problems of organiza¬ 
tion here. A fiexible administration such as these require must be adapted to 
the rigid requirements of existing law. So it has seemed best to define 
Americanization work as a separate type of activity carrying its own organ¬ 
ization. 

It is not possible to maintain a completely separate organization, but 
it is possible to approach the aim. Already we have more persons employed 
in this work exclusively than have ever before been so engaged. 

The law provides that we may have evening schoc's with a maximum at¬ 
tendance of four hours. Further, that there may be “special day and evening 
classes of elementary schools”; that is to say, special classes held in the day 
and evening which should be attached to the orgar.i.a.lon of day elementary 
schools. 

This means in the first case that the teachers employed with the evening 
elementary school organization would receive the pay fixed by the Board of 
Education for evening schools and that teachers employed in “special day 
and evening classes of elementary schools” would be paid pro rata regular 


32 


AMERICANIZATION 


day rates (precisely as they would be paid if they were employed in day 
schools) on an hour for hour basis. 

♦ * ♦ 

It has been necessary, up to date, to employ persons already employed in 
regular day schools when a sufficient number of other competent people is 
not available, but so far as possible it is intended to make the staff of these 
evening schools a special group of people. 

Classes carried on during the day for adults, i. e., for the same general pur¬ 
poses as the evening elementary schools, are not, however, attached to the 
evening elementary school organization. They are listed as provided for in 
the fifth subdivision of Section 1662; that is, there will be special day classes 
of elementary schools. Persons employed in these special classes will not 
be employed in the regular day schools, though they may be employed in the 
evening schools. 

The law requires that these special day classes should be organically con¬ 
nected with some existing day school and some principal of the existing day 
school will be the formal principal of the special day classes. These special 
day classes, however, will be subject to the same technical supervision as 
are the evening schools. 

Eventually, it should come about that all the teachers in these special 
day classes and in these evening schools will form a corps separate and 
distinct because it will be possible to pay them sufficient salary to make the 
study of Americanization worth while. 

* ♦ * 

The principle of co-operation has served excellently. Cottages and ac¬ 
tivities have been located and maintained by the assistance of the City 
Federation of Parent-Teacher Association. Camp classes have been supported 
in part by various clubs. Private initiative and purses have helped more than 
one doubtful experiment to success. 

The department owes its workroom and its facilities to the elementary 
school librarian with her assistants and a committee of elementary teachers. 
The adult classes use the public library as their own. An essential part of 
our business is the interpretation of civic and social agencies to the persons 
who need them. 

This co-operation has contributed directly to the vitalization of the work 
of the department. It has aided in the directing of departmental purposes 
and methods. 

Indeed, it may be not unduly self-appreciative to say that the depart¬ 
ment has thus made its own small contribution to the general comprehension 
of the fact that Americanization is not the task of the schools alone but of 
the community as a whole. 

(Copyright, 1919, by the Los Angeles Examiner.) 






